I woke up this rainy Halloween morning and realized I couldn’t let today go by without wishing you all a Happy Halloween…

I’ve been struggling with whether or not I’d come back and announce that I was ending the comic or whether I was back or what. The last few months have been a combo of a few weeks of wrist pain followed by just spending all my spare time working in clay, experimenting with ceramic clays, functional art, finishing techniques, etc. It’s been a journey and an obsession and all of my recent art shows have included new clay works. I sort of booked myself into a lot of shows and that forced me to work like a maniac and learn a lot through both success and failure. Anyway, I won’t bore you with details, just trust me when I say I’ve been working my butt off and am incredibly happy. During this time I just haven’t been driven to squeeze a comic in to my crazy week. I don’t want to make one just because I feel like I have to because I’m certain the comic would suffer. So, when my heart isn’t in it and I can’t spare 5 hours, I just think, ‘ maybe next week’ and well that just keeps being the case. Maybe it’s run it’s course. Maybe I should put out a book. Maybe I just needed a break. I really don’t know. All I know is this morning I woke up and had a comic for you guys and the desire to make it so I did.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and got a chance to dress up and do scary stuff or are going to do something fun tonight. I went to an live radio theater event and dressed as a dead flapper, checked out some great local haunted houses (Hellview Cemetery and Radley Haunted House – both in St. Pete) and earlier in the month was a vendor at Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend. I skipped all the big parties and worked instead, but it’s still been a festive month. Jim and I have been watching scary movies before bed all month long as a tribute to the season. Surprisingly, this hasn’t led to much in the way of nightmares. I’ll have to try a little harder.

Speaking of nightmares, how about some artwork that is not only truly scary and haunting but is absolutely beautiful and moving. Anton Semenov is a Russian artist whose work I’m sure you will love. I can’t think of a better artist to share with you this Halloween. His Deviant art gallery (where he goes by Gloom82) is here. As a teaser, here are a couple of samples of what you’ll find there.

If you like a little pop culture humor with your monsters, check out Drew Daywalt’s latest short film Kart Driver. Super Mario Bros fans will especially love this one.

Here’s a couple of things I’ve been working on lately…keep your eye on CalanRee.com for more on my art work, including the upcoming art doll figure I’m doing for the Bitchin show at BLue Lucy gallery on Nov 12th. This piece might just be one of my best. I can’t wait to show you…but first I need to finish it!

Monster Platter with High Fire Wire Staples and Zombie Monster Shot Glasses – some of the pieces from my monster scar series of functional ceramics.

A bottle using a carving technique called Sgraffito – I’m doing a lot of pieces using this technique lately. It’s a way my illustrations can marry with clay into functional works –

I’m also working on a series of Skull Bud Vases. These are some of my favorites of the first batch. I just picked up another batch from the kiln this week and have a couple of more awaiting bisque fire. I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing these for a while, as I’m pretty fond of them.

I didn’t expect to make functional art when I returned to ceramics…I really wanted to continue with my art dolls/figures…and I will, but with experimenting comes failures, pieces that come out awful that you have to trash and well it’s a bit easier to lose a smaller bud vase than a figure that took you a week. That’s part of it and the other part is well, because I can! I am making little dishes and vessels and such because it is very exciting to me to be able to create art work that one can incorporate into their daily life…to be able to do more than just look at it is a new experience for me and I can’t seem to stop making functional work. Maybe it’s a phase and soon I’ll be dedicated to only figurative but I think both are more likely. I don’t know much of anything lately, except I’m following my heart and life is pretty damn good.

Happy Halloween!

<3 calan

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17 Responses to “Halloween Costume”

If you do stop i will miss the cool finds you make because I’m too lazy to go looking for myself. Don’t force me to be proactive! Noooo i couldn’t take it. hehe I love the artwork by gloom82.

I love the new functional art. I want me some of those shot glasses. That bottle is awesome as well. The skull bud vases are cute. Have to say you seem headed in the right direction.

My Halloween was spent in true geek fashion hanging out with friends on a game called Guildwars. The game celebrates nearly every holiday in some fashion and Halloween means some zones in the game got changed to reflect the season. Ghostly clouds in the sky, the moon given an evil looking face, ghosts flying in the sky, the npc’s in the game turned into creatures or made to run around the zone as some monster or other, fun Halloween quests and trick or treat bags filled with goodies useful in the game as rewards for completing the quests, and best of all the Mad King. He shows up on the day of Halloween and makes you do as he says or you die. If you manage to get through his whole game of do as i say then you get an extra reward at the end. Also every year they have new masks you can wear just for showing up to the event. Mixed with the costumes you can buy it makes for a fun time in virtual land. So that was my Halloween.

Well glad you made it back on here for Halloween. Take care of yourself and that wrist.

YAY! I’m really glad you posted. I would miss this comic terribly if it were to end. It’s been one of the highlights of my week and I really like to check in and see what all these “crazy-by-other-peoples-standards” have to say. My halloween was spent sleeping and then calling the cops on loud bar patrons that woke me up. I feel like the little old lady yelling “get off my lawn you damn drunks” but its the progression of life when you work.

Take care and if you do decide to let the comic go I’ll suport the choice.

matt – that sounds fun. i still get how awesome spending time with people in a virtual setting can be. i definitely had some great times when i used to spend time in Second Life and I remember how we’d have very seasonal things to do – this time of year we’d be ice skating, snowball fights, holiday parties, evil elf hijinx, etc. We’d give eachother xmas presents too so there was a lot of shopping. Sounds crazy to me even now, but it was fun and I’ve made some friends I still talk to now, years later.

thanks amanda…i’ll tell you a secret. i’m totally the old bitty that will call the cops on yo ass, lol. especially after that robbery in our home while we slept, if you are a loud jerk on my lawn or if you are a crackhead knocking on doors to ‘wash windows’ etc, i’m calling the cops on you. i might even follow you in my car while i call so i can tell them exactly where you are. i’m nuts. 🙂

btw for now, i think i’ll just keep the comic up and update whenever i can. lets see how that goes…

In regards to ending it – please don’t! Not only would I (and many others) miss it, but GingerDead is kind of a base for much of the other stuff you create. With the web comic and greeting cards etc, you kind of have the “GingerDead brand” for all the various shows you attend. To lose that “brand” and that name, I think, would be very unfortunate.

i am so glad to hear you are living a creative, happy life. i love the idea of “functional” art, like vases etc. myself, i love boxes of every kind shape or form. in the ned, it is what you enjoy that brings happiness, so follow your dreams, calan. it’s been a fun ride, and i am sure to see you or your work again. (hope you are able to update your comic now and then too).

Hey happy hollidays and all that fun stuff. I hope they are going well for everyone. Seeing how its been almost 2 months since a comic I hope you didn’t decide to give up on us and you just got super busy doing way more awesome things like learning to skydive. Or at very least giving your other projects the much needed attention they all crave and desire least they rip open your skull and wreck havoc with your waking life. There is a good possibility that I will be moving out of Tampa in the coming year so wish me luck with that. Take care and happy merry christchanusolstikwanzika!

hi cody! the current endeavors are pretty great, thanks. i just finished my first solo exhibition entitled LORE. i have the first half of the show documented and will have the second half up soon. here’s LORE pt 1.